Mailbox, Photo By Dulcie on Flickr One of the obvious problems with going away for a whole year is figuring out what to do with your mail. While many services and companies these days offer paperless options, many still do not. I know first hand that if your VISA bill gets returned to sender, the very first thing the VISA company will do is put a hold on your card until you get a proper address again. So it’s important to have your mail end up somewhere. I briefly debated asking someone in my family to look after all my mail for me. The idea there would be to simply use one of their house addresses ...

I recently caught wind of this video showing a professor scolding nearly 200 students for “cheating” on a university midterm. The problem is, after watching the video, is that I fail to see how this is cheating at all. What appears to have happened is that the university professor, most likely out of laziness in my opinion, generated a midterm exam using a test bank, which is a database of test questions. Since it is likely that these questions were also on many of the previous year’s midterm exams, students that studied from old material had a distinct advantage over students who hadn’t ...

BarCamp, Photo by John Biehler Tomorrow is the kick-off party for BarCamp Vancouver. While I do indeed have a ticket, I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to make it at this point. I’m right at the end of a huge client deliverable, and my attendance will depend on whether or not I can get it all done tomorrow. In addition, I’m also hoping to start moving things into storage this weekend if I can. That said, I’ve been to a few other BarCamp Vancouver events before, and am hoping to make an appearance at the party if I can. BarCamp is an unconference – attendees put conference ...

Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Drive My friend Dale picked up a Seagate Momentus XT 7200 RPM hybrid drive not that long ago and put it in his Macbook Pro. Shortly thereafter he was raving about how fast it was, so I decided it would be a good idea to put one in my computer as well. Dale brought one down to Mexico, but unfortunately neither of us had a Torx screwdriver to change out the one on my computer. So I took it home with me and did the surgery on my computer a few days ago. For those of you that don’t know, a hybrid drive is a cross between a normal hard drive and a solid state drive. While ...

Members of the Red Cross at the hotel. Photograph: Reuters The first I heard about the explosion today was on Twitter. A friend of mine made mention that she was glad I wasn’t in Mexico anymore as a blast just killed five Canadians staying at a resort down there, as well as two of the hotel staff. I got back home at about 2:30am in the morning on Saturday, so Mexico is still fresh on my mind. At the resort we were at, Dale and I spent quite a bit of time in the lobby sipping coffee and relaxing. At those resorts, the lobby is typically where people check in and out, and often sit around having ...

iPad, Photo by John Biehler My recent trip to Mexico gave me my first real opportunity to use my iPad on a travel adventure. I haven’t really had a lot of time to try watching movies or TV shows on it, and thought it would be fun to try watching a movie on the plane instead of paying for an inflight movie on WestJet. I loaded my iPad up with Mission Impossible III, Dances with Wolves (I had a copy floating around) and a few new episodes of House. I also made sure I charged the device up to 100% before leaving for the airport. The first great thing about having the iPad loaded with movies is ...

My landlord just stopped by for a visit. He had emailed me while I was down in Mexico and asked if he could bring some people by today, so I said sure. This morning I did a quick clean to make sure the place was presentable, and then set off to a coffee shop to do some work. Obviously the place wasn’t spotless, since I have a bunch of half packed boxes around and have been in the process of packing for the last few weeks. But most of the bedrooms are empty and the living room basically has a huge pile of boxes in the corner. So I was a bit surprised when, upon arriving back home, my landlord ...

Today marks the two week mark before I’m officially homeless. It’s the first big milestone for my adventure, and I’m looking forward to finally hitting that point. I have about 80% of my apartment boxed up, with only the kitchen to go. I’ll slowly box up the remainder this week, and hopefully start transferring everything into storage next weekend. Tomorrow my landlord is bringing some people over to look at the place and hopefully rent it out. He hasn’t seen the apartment in about six months, so hopefully he doesn’t find anything wrong with it. I’m counting on getting my full damage ...

We have limited flight options here in Canada, one of which is WestJet. Compared to some of their competitors, WestJet comes across as fun, receptive, and youthful, which is why I do my best to fly WestJet whenever I can. Every Wednesday, WestJet asks people via their Twitter stream (@westjet) to submit photos of the winglets on their planes. For those of you who don’t know, a winglet is the little tip that points up on the edge of the wings. Winglets technically increase drag on the airplane, but decrease the turbulence from wingtip vortices. In most cases winglets improve the airplane’s ...

So, we’re on day four of seven in the Caribbean, and so far it’s been a lot of fun. Other than one cloudy day, the rest of the vacation so far has been hot and sunny, which is great. As it’s still low season, the resort isn’t as packed as we’re used to, which is fine because we’ve been required to spend a lot of time doing work due to some projects we have going on back home. Unfortunately for me, I dropped my iPhone 4 yesterday and ended up cracking the front-side protective glass. In the iPhone 3G, it would cost about $15 and some sweat and tears to replace the glass. Apparently ...

Shira Lazar I first met Shira Lazar a few years ago at Launch Party Vancouver 2 I believe. Shira was up from Los Angeles to cover the event at the request of a mutual friend, Maura Rodgers. I unfortunately didn’t get to talk to Shira too much that night, but have kept in touch with her periodically over email. Shira is a well known Los Angeles media personality, and blogs frequently on CBS News’ On The Scene). Shira was nice enough to do a guest entry on my blog during the 2008 Blogathon. That event helped raise raise over $10,000 for the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver and some of Vancouver’s ...

Today is November 4th, and my flight to Buenos Aires leaves on January 4th, 2011. That means there are only 60 days left to go until I depart on my big adventure. It wasn’t that long ago I was doing a post in celebration of 150 days to go, and now here we are at the two month point. I’m heading to Mexico tomorrow via WestJet in Vancouver. I spent most of last night packing my suitcase and trying to get my apartment as clean as possible in case my landlord decides to show the apartment while I’m gone. In truth, there really isn’t too much more to do in my apartment when I return. Other ...

I’ll admit, I don’t get it. It’s been four years now and yet Twitter is pushing forward with an advertising based revenue model (at least, pushing forward via a 3rd party). I’m not Twitter, and for me to sit on the sidelines and recommend a revenue model for a service I’m not a part of is pretty weak. But that said, I honestly think people would pay for a Pro twitter service if Twitter would simply offer one. I think back to my days in the BBS era when we would all pay $50 (this is back in 1990, so probably more like $100 now) simply to have a (+) next to our BBS name. That’s a form ...

Hasta La Vista, Baby - Photo By John Biehler It doesn’t really come as a big surprise, but Gordon Campbell just stepped down as the premier of British Columbia. Between his handling of the Olympics and the controversy surrounding the harmonized sales tax (HST), a tax he promised not to introduce prior to getting elected, it’s no wonder most people are completely dissatisfied with his performance. I suspect the liberal party were hoping that Campbell’s announcement of a 15% income tax reduction starting in 2011 would offset the disappointment with the HST, but after his lacklustre televised ...

As yes, it’s the subject most guys choose not to talk about. But it’s real, and yes, I unfortunately have a bit of one due to shitty genetics. If you’re like me and of somewhat European descent you most likely have two eyebrows that like to be together more than they do apart. And that’s fine. Don’t be sad. First, you’re a prime candidate to back Bert and Ernie up on TV. Second, whenever everyone else out there has a cold forehead, you’ll be nice and warm. The first part of recovery is admitting there’s a problem. From there, here are your options. The Shave This is the course ...

I had an idea roughly ten years ago out in Ottawa for a website or service that would let you pick your starting destination and get a list of possible ending destinations. That idea came out of a trip my friend Rob and I tried (unsuccessfully) to go on. We were both sick of our day jobs in Ottawa, had lots of money (compared to other 24 year olds), and had a long weekend coming up. So we started calling travel agents, telling them we didn’t really care where we went, as long as we got the hell out of town. Despite our efforts, we came up empty handed since none of the travel agents or their ...

Photo by Ryan Hyde I did a post a while ago detailing my plans to finally give up my no-fee bank account at PC Financial and move to a full service bank in preparation for my trip. How come, you ask? First, the idea of having a no-frills bank while in another country just seems far too risky. If I hit a snag, I definitely want to be able to pick up the phone and call someone for help. While PC Financial does offer phone service, in my experience very basic things like obtaining certified cheques or doing wire transfers are often a pain. While PC Financial is a subsidiary of CIBC, it’s still ...

I’m not officially starting my big travel adventure until after Christmas, but decided to go on a little vacation in the meantime. On Friday I’ll be boarding a plane and meeting a friend down in the Mayan Riviera on the east coast of Mexico. I went on a similar trip a year ago and it was a great time. The resort we’ll be staying at is called the Bahai Principe Tulum, and it’s currently the #2 rated sort in the Akumal region. There are actually three different resorts on the same property, Coba, Akumal and Tulum. Last time we stayed in Akumal, but ended up really liking the pools and the ...

I have a portable hard drive that I’m taking with me on my travels, partially to back up my main laptop from time to time, and partially because it contains a large percentage of my personal movie collection on it. That said, I’m going to try and get a pile of movies on there that I haven’t seen yet so I have something when I’m on train rides or in hostels and what-not. So, I’d appreciate it if people can leave a list in the comments of some of their favourite movies, or anything they’ve seen in the last few years they thought was really awesome. Thanks! ...

It’s strange living in my apartment right now. I have half of the place boxed up, and am slowly selling the rest of it off. Even though my bed is still set up, it doesn’t really feel like home anymore, so I’ve been sleeping on my couch in the living room. That couch was one I bought back in 2001 in Ottawa, and we’ve been through a lot together. When I leave this place it’s going to its final resting place at my sister’s house, but it’s been a comfy companion for the last ten years. My bar stools sold tonight, as did my entertainment unit. In terms of large furniture, that leaves ...